including working at the n.s.c. on detail, at nato headquarters, brought at the middle east and the pentagon. he was advisor to four presidents, president obama asked him to lead his afghanistan-pakistan policy review in early 2009 and he did that for a couple of months before happily, for us, returning to brookings. bruce has written already two books in the time he's been here, actually a third is about to come out, i'll mention that in just a second, but the first two were about al qaeda and then about the u.s.-pakistan relationship "the deadly embrace." . his new book, coming out next month is "avoiding armageddon" and it's the story about the u.s.-india-pakistan relationship and crisis management over the last half century or so. general stan mcchrystal is a 1976 graduate of west point. spent 34 years in the u.s. army. retiring as a four-star general in the summer of 2010. he has been commander in afghanistan. he was the director of the joint staff. but perhaps in military circles, most of all, as i mentioned, this five-year period at joint special operations command makes him memorable
